Political Women Volume II Part 13

IF the new ministry of Queen Anne succeeded in inducing the English nation to support the treaty of Utrecht, that was nothing less than to prove undeniably, without fear of contradiction, that the establishment of the French dynasty in the Peninsula had there acquired the authority of a fact irrevocably accomplished. The resuscitation of the Spanish nation had, therefore, a decisive effect upon European affairs; and whilst, by leaving France almost intact, the treaties of Utrecht had parcelled out the monarchy of the catholic kings, the authors of the great popular movement crowned by the victory of Villaviciosa might consider without prejudice their country as sacrificed, notwithstanding the weight which it had flung into the scales.

In this work Madame des Ursins had had certainly a very considerable share, and it was with a very legitimate pride that through it she was enabled to prevail at Versailles as at Madrid. A perseverance unexampled both in idea and conduct, a rare suppleness in the means, had made her the princ.i.p.al instrument of an enterprise in which a virile ambition, united to a deep devotedness, sustained her. Undismayed by reverses, never intoxicated by success, she tempered by her equanimity the at times imprudent ardour of the young Queen, and reanimated by her firmness the frequent retrocessions of her morose consort. She rejoiced, therefore, with a scarcely veiled pride in that security for the future which Spain had conquered before France, and in her correspondence with Madame de Maintenon her letters began to a.s.sume a somewhat protective tone. It was at this culminating point of her greatness that fate was preparing to inflict upon her the humiliating catastrophe which again obscured the remembrance of her services and even the honour of her name.

It is unnecessary to recapitulate the means by which peace was re-established, how the fall of the Whig ministry and the elevation of the Archduke to the imperial throne after the death of Joseph I. brought England and the other allied powers into the treaties which confirmed Philip V. in the peaceable possession of the Spanish monarchy. We will not dwell upon these details, nor upon divers acts of interior policy which followed upon the victory of Villaviciosa. Let us confine our attention solely to those in which the Princess des Ursins took an active part. The first was the pursuance of the administrative centralisation of which we have spoken; the abolition of the council exclusively called the Council of Castile, for which she caused to be subst.i.tuted a council of state, the members of which should be chosen from every part of Spain, and which became the centre of the government.

The second was a reform in the finance department; Orry being in these measures the Princess's instrument, and he justified the long-continued esteem with which she had honoured his talents. It was thus that after having successively saved the monarchy from a policy exclusively French, and from the factious pretensions of the grandees, after having contributed to the defeat of Austria, Madame des Ursins sought to consolidate on firm bases the power of Philip V. and prepare a happier future for Spain.

She was not destined, however, to long enjoy the fruits of her triumph.

It was a symptomatic sign of this new phase of her life, the universally unfavourable interpretation given to an affair which should rather be looked upon in the light of a check than of a fault. It is well known that Philip, desirous of recognising the devotedness of his son's governess, and of a.s.suring to that n.o.ble lady an independent position which should not be below her birth, had stipulated, at the time of the preliminaries of peace, for the reservation of a territory in the Spanish low countries ceded to Austria, which he destined to form into a sovereignty for Marie Anne de la Tremouille. This negotiation, which bore successively upon the county of Limbourg and the small seigniory of La Roche-en-Ardennes, had been received at first at Versailles with the most entire approbation, for the reproach of "_playing the queen_" only occurred as an after-thought. The grat.i.tude of their Catholic Majesties was found to be quite natural, and was warmly praised, especially by Madame de Maintenon. It is not at all to be wondered at, consequently, if Madame des Ursins should blandly contemplate such a prospect, especially in antic.i.p.ation of the approaching demise of her well-beloved protectress, who could not fail to be soon replaced in the confidence and couch of her consort. The Court of France did not change its opinion until that affair of La Roche, very annoyingly taken by the Dutch, had become the occasion of a delay in the signing of the general peace. Then Madame des Ursins was overwhelmed by reproaches on all sides, and those which came from Saint Cyr were of a peculiarly acrimonious character, which we must not join the Duke de Saint Simon in attributing to a jealousy of which there exists no trace, but which is explained by Madame de Maintenon's desire to secure repose to Louis XIV. at any cost.

These reproaches, moreover, were without foundation, for the accusers of the Princess should have considered that, if France had the right to await with lively impatience the signature of a treaty which secured to her almost all her conquests, it was quite otherwise with Spain, called upon by that same treaty to pay alone the costs of the pacification. The measures of 1713, the conclusion of which was in fact r.e.t.a.r.ded for a few months by the interest and intervention of Madame des Ursins, had been received with a very natural indignation in the monarchy of Charles V., from which they tore away the Milanese, the Two Sicilies, Sardinia, the Low Countries, Port Mahon, and Gibraltar. So France can now easily decide whether it had been in 1815 an unpardonable crime in her eyes to cause by a dilatory question the adjournment of the signing of the treaties of Vienna.

That check was the first in a series of misfortunes which death alone was henceforward destined to bring to a close. Early in 1714 died very suddenly, at the age of twenty-six, Marie Louise of Savoy, her delicate frame worn out by an ardent temperament, which had sustained it whilst the storm raged, and which declined when the breath of the hurricane had ceased to kindle it further. The remains of the young Queen had scarcely descended into the vaults of the Escurial ere the nation demanded to know who was to be the new queen-consort; and the same question was addressed to Madame des Ursins by the Court of Versailles, so well were known there both the requirements and the austerity of the King of Spain. What pa.s.sed during the eight months of that widowhood so painfully borne? What mysteries did the Medina Coeli palace witness, in which Madame des Ursins shut up closely Philip V. from the gaze of every prying eye? Such questions can never now be answered with certainty, for the reports put into circulation in France by Saint Simon and Duclos, in Italy by Poggiali, and in England by Fitz-Maurice, had their common source in the conversations of Alberoni, one of the least scrupulous actors in the drama of the _Quadruple Alliance_. Did the elderly _camerara mayor_, already three-score and ten, dare to spread alluring snares wherein to entrap an amorous prince of thirty? And did such tentative, more strange than audacious, succeed to the extent of binding Philip's conscience in some way? History will never answer the question.

Instead, therefore, of hazarding conjectures, it will be well to confine our attention to the well-authenticated political acts of the Princess at this, to her, serious conjuncture.

In losing her royal mistress, the powerful favourite lost along with her the greatest portion of her strength. It was the remote signal which heralded her fall. At the same time it did not appear that her energy had become diminished, or her intelligence clouded, but that her ordinary prudence had abandoned her. Perhaps, having attained such an elevation, she dreaded no further reverse, and believed herself secure enough, in the universal esteem and admiration in which she was held, to venture upon anything. However that might be, as though her brain had grown dizzy, she destroyed with her own hands, not her skilfully raised political edifice, but the structure of her individual fortunes.

Her first imprudence was to attack the Spanish Inquisition. Spain was not then ripe for that reform accomplished only a century later. Much less, as it appears to us, should Madame des Ursins, under the influence of a preconceived religious opinion, with the object of strengthening the royal authority, have attempted its sudden suppression. Far be it from us, certainly, to think of defending the Spanish Inquisition. But it cannot be denied that that inst.i.tution had vigorously defended Philip V., and in the eyes of the people was part and parcel, as it were, of Spain itself. It seemed as though French ideas alone demanded such a reform, and hence popular suspicion was excited. The Princess failed in her attempt; but she had voluntarily created for herself a host of enemies, who from that moment laboured to effect her ruin.

We have already said that, cherishing the hope of obtaining for herself an independent sovereignty, the difficulties arising from her pretensions had delayed the conclusion of the treaty of peace. Louis XIV. was indignant at finding his negotiations fettered and himself involved in an unavoidable opposition to the wishes of his grandson. As for Madame de Maintenon, whether the interests of France, compromised by these delays, had alone provoked her resistance, or whether, as Saint Simon declares, that that independent sovereignty which she herself felt was so little beyond her reach offended her pride by making her feel the distance between their several ranks and births, she opposed the desire of her old friend, and peace was concluded by the authority of Louis XIV. But the King had a grudge against the Princess for having driven him to such extremity. Besides, just then his own dynasty had been fatally stricken. The Duke of Burgundy and his eldest son, the Duke of Brittany, had died. The heir to the throne was an infant only three years old. The Court foresaw the Regency of the Duke of Orleans, a personal enemy of Madame des Ursins, and it was dangerous, by leaving her at the head of affairs in Spain, to prepare, probably, for the future a disastrous rivalry.

The storm thus darkened thickly over the head of this imperious woman, who, supported against her enemies so long as she had been useful, was subject to the common law of favourites, and began to totter when she appeared no longer so. One resource remained to her--to remarry Philip V. She was anxious to find a consort who could replace in her interests Marie Louise, and restore her waning influence. Her incert.i.tude was great: she felt truly that in spite of past services her future fate depended upon her choice. At length she cast her eyes upon Elizabeth Farnese, daughter of the last Duke of Parma, and niece of the then existent Duke, and thought that grat.i.tude for such an extraordinary turn of fortune would for ever secure the attachment of a princess who, without her influence, could never have had pretensions to such an union. But she was anxious to ascertain whether Elizabeth Farnese was one of those who would submit to be ruled, and she opened her mind upon the subject to a man then obscure but afterwards celebrated--Alberoni, who had been sent as consular agent from Parma to Madrid. He had frequent conversations with the great favourite, and readily succeeded in insinuating himself into her good graces. He described the Princess of Parma as simple minded, religious, ignorant of the world from which she had always lived secluded--in short, perfectly fitting to forward the design of the Princess. In making such statements he reckoned at the same time upon pleasing his own Court, and bringing about the fall of Madame des Ursins; for he knew well that Elizabeth, whose character was very different from that which he had represented, would not submit to be governed by any one. Dazzled, therefore, with the smiling vista which chance had so unexpectedly opened to him, and understanding all the importance which he might derive from the negotiation of such marriage, and finding, moreover, Madame des Ursins well disposed beforehand towards him, and, by a singular blindness, inclined to put implicit confidence in one whose interest it was to conceal the truth, he secretly set off for Parma on his delicate mission. By this first move the Princess's game was lost.

CHAPTER III.

THE PRINCESS FRIENDLESS IN SPAIN.

IT was the peculiar misfortune of Madame des Ursins to scarcely meet with a single sincere friend in Spain: she was submitted to there, rather than accepted. She had been sought after through interest or fear rather than through sympathy; but especially since the Queen's decease, since no one save herself was seen by the King's side, and that the strokes of her power were dealt without any apparent intermediator, she was no longer tolerated, save with infinite difficulty. Neither can it be concealed that, at this period, she had not acted in a way to diminish the number of her enemies, or to conciliate them. She was of opinion that the Duke of Berwick had not sufficiently defended her at Versailles against their machinations: she broke with him in 1714, before he returned from Catalonia. She did her utmost to have Tesse chosen to replace him, whom she p.r.o.nounced quite capable of taking Barcelona; and, on learning that Berwick was nevertheless appointed, she hastened to banish Ronquillo, for something he had uttered against the Government, but in reality because he was the intimate friend of that general.[57] Two n.o.bles were also imprisoned at this time--Don Manuel de Sylva, commandant of the galleys of Sicily, already temporarily exiled in 1709 for having (so said the sentence) "spoken ill of her," and Don Valerio d'Aspetia, Lieutenant-General. Both were declared enemies of Madame des Ursins, and the first had moreover the fault of being closely connected with the Duke d'Uzeda. Valerio d'Aspetia died in prison, at the age of seventy, and after fifty years of service, a lamentable loss, and which involved that of his still young and lovely wife, whose days were cut short through grief and poverty. Besides all this, must be noticed a suspicious jealousy of domination over Philip V., which was fearfully developed when that prince found himself a widower, and which betrayed itself in very disagreeable actions.

[57] Memoirs of Saint Philippe, tom. iii., p. 88.

Saint Simon tells us that, after the death of Marie Louise of Savoy, Madame des Ursins usually supped with the King, and had him transferred from the palace of the Buen-Retiro, in which the Queen had died, to that of Medina Coeli. There she caused a corridor to be constructed, leading from the King's cabinet to the apartments of the young princes, wherein she was lodged; and it was not, as may be imagined, to facilitate communications between a bereaved father and his children, who had become doubly dear to him, but, according to our authority, in order that it might never be known whether the King was alone or with her. She was in such haste to see this secret pa.s.sage completed, that, to the great scandal of Catholic Spain, she had the work carried on during Sundays and saints' days as well as upon ordinary days. This was pushed to such an extent, that a great number of pious persons no less than thrice asked Father Robinet, the most exemplary of the confessors Philip V. ever had, if he were not aware of such unlawful labour, and when it was that he intended it should cease. To which the subtle Jesuit, who was unwilling to be accused of laxity in morals, replied that the King had not spoken to him upon the subject, alluding to his relations with Philip as his Confessor, in which relation alone he wished it to be understood that he was to be considered--always adding, for their satisfaction, that if he had been consulted in the matter, he would not have failed to say that, to complete that criminal corridor, work should never have been so permitted, but that to effect its destruction, the labourers might have worked at it even on Easter Day.[58]

[58] Memoires de Saint Simon, tom. xx., p. 171, 172.

This statement of Saint Simon, quite insupportable as it is, would nevertheless leave subsisting, in the melancholy position of the children and their father, a means of justification to Madame des Ursins, did not Duclos deprive her of it; and who, less charitable than the authority whom he generally cites when treating of this celebrated woman, tells us purely and simply that she desired to facilitate the communication of her own apartments with those of the King, which leaves ample room for slander and suspicion. He goes still further. Improving upon Saint Simon, and showing himself better acquainted with the particulars than the Duke, he mentions a very aggravating fact, which was, that, in order to construct that very suspicious means of communication, it was necessary to demolish a monastery of Capuchins, and that in consequence "dead bodies were disinterred, the Holy Sacrament dislodged from the church, the monks quitting it in procession, amidst exclamations of "Oh, sacrilege! Oh, profanation!"

from all Madrid."[59]

[59] Memoirs of Duclos (Pet.i.tot's Collection), tom. i., p. 230.

Happily, Duclos is merely in this the servile copyist of a Spanish author, whose contradictions and bad feeling it would be very easy to expose. He has reproduced word for word the version to be found in the _Memoires sur l'Espagne_, printed as a sequel to the letters of Fitz-Maurice. What! to make a simple corridor from one apartment to another, nothing less was required than to demolish an entire monastery, large as they were, in Spain especially, with its church and everything devoted to its religious purposes, and the dwellings of the monks? And Saint Simon knew nothing of all this? For, had he known it, most a.s.suredly he would not have failed to fling it in the face of Madame des Ursins. That the Marquis de Saint Philippe, who was upon the spot, a man so religious, and who could not endure Madame des Ursins, should say not one word, without fear of derogating from his customary gravity, of that impious scandal, of such a Vandalism as had revolted all Madrid! We think that if M. Duclos had better informed himself upon the point and of the source whence he derived it, he, too, would have complained of exaggeration, and would not have given it out as a fact.

The part played by Madame des Ursins would a.s.suredly have been grander if she had herself renounced the regal boon proffered by Philip V., as soon as it promised to be an obstacle to the pacification of Europe; if she had preferred the general good to her own particular advantage, and sustained her lofty character to the end, she would have preserved by so doing the prestige of grandeur and disinterestedness which had constantly surrounded her. A love of power would have been pardoned in her, always foreign to considerations of personal advantage; and, as ambition, like other human pa.s.sions, may become a source of crime, though it is not itself a crime, in her case it would have been praised, because she would have unceasingly shunned the vanity which lessens it, the self-interest which debases it, and that continual recurrence to egotism which travesties it in intrigue. But she failed to crown her career by that true glory. Seeing the King and Queen of Spain very much offended at the retrograde step of Louis XIV., she further irritated them by her peevish att.i.tude and marked discontent. The Marquis de Brancas, sent by Louis into Spain, proceeded to represent the articles of the Treaty of Utrecht to Philip V. in such wise as the Emperor and his allies wished them to stand; Philip replied that he would not sign them, unless there was a special clause added in favour of Madame des Ursins. That amba.s.sador returned furious, crying out against the Spanish Government, and especially against Madame des Ursins, who directed everything, he said, and who had played at cross-purposes in order to cause his mission to miscarry. He succeeded in drawing down upon the Court of Madrid the heavy rebuke of Louis XIV. This, however, proved altogether useless; for Philip persisted in his resolution, and contented himself with sending the Cardinal del Guidice to his grandfather, whilst Madame des Ursins employed with the same monarch the customary influence of Madame de Maintenon. The latter, in fact, so the Marquis de Saint Philippe tells us, made excuses for Madame des Ursins to Louis XIV., and the other advocate of the Court of Madrid obtained the order for the march of the troops destined for the siege of Barcelona, whose success, looked upon as certain, ought likewise to render the Austrians more disposed to treat upon the question of her princ.i.p.ality.

But that was not the only expedient employed by Madame des Ursins. The English amba.s.sador, Lord Lexington, besides Gibraltar and Port Mahon, relied upon obtaining for the English a free trade in the brandies of Tarragon; this the Princess conceded to him. He desired also that they might be allowed to construct, upon the River de la Plata, a fort for their protection, and as a depot for negroes, in order that in future they might alone supply the Spanish colonies with slaves: this monopoly was also accorded. In return, Lord Lexington signed a convention with her, in which Queen Anne "_engaged to secure her a sovereignty_."[60] At such price the adhesion of England seemed secured. She reckoned also on obtaining that of Holland by a.n.a.logous commercial advantages, and, in fact, she obtained them. But how to win back Louis XIV. was the question! For that she had a secret project, which, as she thought, ought to rehabilitate her in that monarch's eyes, in representing her as guided by a love of France more than by vanity. Louis XIV. was not to derive any territorial advantage from the Treaty of Utrecht. But Madame des Ursins was desirous so soon as the cession was made of the said princ.i.p.ality of giving it up immediately to that King, in exchange for an equivalent life-interest in Touraine, within French territory. With that view she had a clause inserted in the letters-patent of Philip V., empowering her to alienate during her lifetime that princ.i.p.ality in whatever way she chose. Such was her design; and that it had evidently been divined by the sagacious Madame de Maintenon would appear from the following pa.s.sage in a letter of about that date addressed to the Princess: "Side by side with all your merits, you have _a concealed project_, which, if I guess aright, has got the uppermost of all those qualities."[61]

[60] So runs the textual engagement of Queen Anne, taken from the Royal Archives of the Hague, and communicated to M. Geffroy.

[61] Lettres de Madame de Maintenon et de Madame des Ursins, tom.

ii., pp. 7, 8.

But that was just what the allies most feared. The faculty given to Madame des Ursins in Philip's deed of gift had made them suspect that intention of a surrender or an exchange, and they were on the watch for everything which might arise to support their suppositions. In such conjuncture, Madame des Ursins was wanting, as it appears to us, in prudence and address. Instead of postponing, until the cession had become an accomplished fact, the question of the exchange, she pursued the two objects simultaneously. To negotiate the second with Torcy, she sent D'Aubigny secretly to France, and the latter, after some overtures, gave her hopes of entire success. Transported with delight, she gave herself up to all the illusions of what the future had in store for her of happiness. She was not, therefore, destined to descend either in rank or honours after quitting the Court of Madrid. Here she had ruled beneath the shadow of a phantom King; there she would command directly and in person. In Spain, she had only been a subordinate; in France she would have no superior, and would be more mistress of herself. All these satisfactions were increased a hundredfold by the proud feeling of returning to her native country as a sovereign princess, in a state so strictly levelled by royalty, wherein no one would have a condition equal to her own, and in which she would display with jesting haughtiness the pomp inseparable from her t.i.tle before her abashed enemies. She had so much faith in the hopes with which d'Aubigny inspired her, and by which that cunning favourite thought perhaps already to profit, that she instructed him to go into Touraine and to purchase land in the neighbourhood of Amboise whereon to erect a chateau, which should be called the manor of Chanteloup.[62] It was something like selling the skin of the bear before slaying her bruin; but with the formal and written engagement of England, with the support of Holland, which she also had, with Louis XIV., whom she sought to win back through the influence of Madame de Maintenon, and by the calculated n.o.bleness of her intentions, she would overcome the resistance of Austria, and her victory was certain.

[62] Memoires de Saint Simon, tom. xviii., p. 104.

Unfortunately, that which she ought to have antic.i.p.ated actually came to pa.s.s. England first discovered the occult negotiations of d'Aubigny at Versailles, and, unwilling that the Princess des Ursins should bestow anything upon France, she changed her tone, and became almost a defaulter to her. A Valentian gentleman, Clemente Generoso, says Duclos, still copying textually from Fitz-Maurice, blamed Lord Lexington, whose agent and interpreter he had been from the beginning of the war, for having committed the Queen of England so far to Madame des Ursins, and advised him to tear up the convention.[63] By the intervention of that lady, England had obtained all it required, and the written consent of Philip V. rendered the concessions irrevocable; there was no danger, therefore, of want of good faith on the part of Madame des Ursins.

[63] Memoirs of Duclos, tom. i., p. 190.

The towering rage of the latter may be imagined when she heard this news. She made the most earnest entreaties to Queen Anne not to abandon her. All that she could obtain was that that Princess "would use her good offices" to procure her the object of her desires. An elastic and somewhat embarra.s.sing promise of protection was subst.i.tuted for a formal and signed engagement, which bound Queen Anne to the interests of Madame des Ursins as to those of a contracting power. The English had tricked her; they had surpa.s.sed her in cunning. A short time afterwards, if we may believe Fitz-Maurice and his Spanish interlocutors, she made Clemente Generoso pay dearly for his evil counsel. One day when he was returning from London to Madrid, with instructions for Lord Lexington, some Irishmen, in the service of Philip V., attacked him, and, as he was endeavouring to take refuge in a church, they killed him, conformably to the orders which they had received, it is said, from the Princess des Ursins and Orry.

We only give this statement, be it well understood, under reservation, because nowhere else have we found any confirmation or even indication of it. But thus much is certain, that the chances which Madame des Ursins had on the part of the Queen of England were greatly diminished, and that it was necessary to look elsewhere for more reliable aid. She quickly despatched, therefore, her favourite d'Aubigny to Utrecht.

"But," says Saint Simon, "_c'etait un trop pet.i.t Sire_; he was not admitted beyond the antechambers." But Saint Simon often falls into error through excessive contempt for those below his own level. By certain doc.u.ments recently discovered at the Hague and communicated to M. Geffroy, it may be seen that the members of the congress of Utrecht deliberated with d'Aubigny, and that they designated him _the plenipotentiary_ of Madame des Ursins. However that may be, d'Aubigny did not obtain much; in fact, he spoilt everything by offering the Dutch greater advantages than had been accorded to the English. So the latter at least pretended, in order, no doubt, to have a pretext for wholly abandoning Madame des Ursins and for resuming their haughty att.i.tude towards her, after having courted her for awhile. Queen Anne feigned, in fact, to be hurt that the Dutch had been more favoured than her own subjects, and exclaimed, with a readiness that betrayed an inward satisfaction: "Since the Princess des Ursins has recourse to others, I abandon her."[64] D'Aubigny, as the sole result, obtained only vague hopes on the part of the Dutch, who were as inimical as the English as to any exchange with France.

[64] Memoirs of Duclos, tom. i., p. 191.

Without being angry with her "man of business," whom she allowed even to return to Amboise to complete the erections already begun, Madame des Ursins selected, to continue the negotiations, a more important personage--a young nephew of Madame de Noailles, named de Bournonville, Baron de Capres. But he covered himself with ridicule at this game of private intrigue rather than real diplomatic negotiation; and, notwithstanding all the trouble he took, he obtained nothing by it, "the grat.i.tude of Madame des Ursins excepted, who made Philip V. give him the Golden Fleece, the rank of grandee, the Walloon company of the bodyguard--everything, in fact, he could desire."[65]

[65] MS. Letters of the Baron de Capres to Mad. des Ursins, x.x.xi., x.x.xii.

The successive check of her two diplomatists was not, however, a sufficient warning to Madame des Ursins. Ever in pursuit of a position, which had become nothing more than a chimera after having served as a lure on the part of the English, she relied for success upon the persistent and obstinate will of Philip V., who made it a question of _amour propre_ for himself as much as a just recompense for Madame des Ursins. It was under these circ.u.mstances that this Prince refused to sign the treaty of Utrecht, that treaty which Louis XIV. had signed and sealed with his own royal hand, and engaged to make him accept it, even though the allied powers should not grant him what he desired to bequeath to Madame des Ursins.[66] Such a firm att.i.tude proved plainly enough that there was good reason for reliance upon him.

[66] Memoirs of Duke of Berwick, tom. ii., pp. 164-169.

But this affair "hung up" the peace, to use Saint Simon's phrase--the peace that Louis XIV. could now sign, because it was honourable. His displeasure was extreme. It was all very well for Madame des Ursins to say that she had nothing to do with the matter, that the King of Spain was only following his own inclination, and that after all she despised the malevolent designs of his enemies; still the delay experienced in the conclusion of the general peace was imputed to her. She was accused of occupying herself too exclusively with her own interests, and of placing in the scales the repose of Europe entire: it was said that she abused Philip's good-nature, and that she ought not to have availed herself of her ascendancy over that conscientious prince save to release him from his promise, to free him from all trammel, and incline him towards the wishes of his grandfather.

It was from the French ministry that these complaints came, and Torcy, so greatly humiliated in 1704, at length had his revenge. Madame de Maintenon herself made remarks upon her, based upon the same motives; only that she threw more form into them, contenting herself with giving the Princess to infer that of which the others did not spare her the harshest expression. "You have good reason to let folks chatter;" she wrote, "_provided that you have nothing to reproach yourself with_....

for, you must know, we here look upon the treaty of Spain with Holland, such as it is, as equally necessary, _as you think it shameful at Madrid_.... Make up your mind, therefore, Madam, and do not allow it to be said _that you are the sole cause of the prolongation of the war_. I cannot believe it, and think it very scandalous that others should."[67]

[67] Letters of Madame des Ursins to Madame de Maintenon, tom. ii., 7th Aug., 1713; 3rd Sept., 1713; 16th June, 1714.

But these warnings and exhortations, imparted with such delicate tact, had no more effect at Madrid than the harsh severity of the ministerial reprimands. Louis XIV. then made his solemn voice heard. "Sign," said he, tartly, to his grandson, "or no aid from me. Berwick is on his march for Barcelona--I will recall him; then I will make peace privately with the Dutch and with the Emperor; I will leave Spain at war with those two powers, and I will not mix myself up further in any of your affairs, because I do not choose, for the private interest of Madame des Ursins, to defer securing the repose of my people, and perhaps plunge them into fresh sufferings."[68]

[68] Memoires de Saint Philippe, tom. iii., p. 91, and Duclos, tom.

i., p. 100.

When Louis XIV. had thus proffered his last word, Philip V. even yet urged some objections, and the Princess des Ursins on her part, moved her friends into action; but there was no means of converting Louis XIV.

to what the Court of Madrid demanded, since not one of the allies was willing either; and, as for the acquisition of those few manors in Luxembourg, in exchange for an equivalent in Touraine, he preferred personally to have nothing upon any frontier, than to gain so little, and owe such feeble legacy to an intrigue, unworthy of his character, unworthy of a great nation, and only fit to serve as a text for the biting irony of foreigners or that of his own subjects.

Madame des Ursins is indeed no longer comprehensible throughout this affair. She, hitherto so n.o.ble-minded, so devoted to high-cla.s.s politics, so prudent, so full of tact. Oh! how far off are we from realising that lofty sentiment of hers:--

"Sans peine je pa.s.serais de la dictature a la charrue!"

There was nothing left, however, but to give way. The treaty of Utrecht was signed by Philip V., and unconditionally. The net gain in the business fell to d'Aubigny; he received for his trouble as a negotiator, and for his constancy in another way, the manor of Chanteloup, revealed the motive of its construction--yet an enigma to everybody in France, says Saint Simon[69]--installed himself therein, and, for the rest, made himself loved and esteemed there. To Madame des Ursins there only remained the mortification of having failed, a mortification the greater that her pretensions had been so lofty and tenacious. It was further increased, also, by having turned the Court of France against her, and engendered a coolness towards her on the part of Madame de Maintenon herself, who up to that juncture had always approved of her manner of acting and her system of government, but who now, seizing the occasion of Orry having established some imposts upon the Catalans, did not hesitate to say very harshly and laconically: "We do not think Orry fit for his post, for Spain is very badly governed."[70]

[69] Memoires de Saint Simon, tom. xviii., p. 104.